I had some astringent wild pawpaws for the first time ever this year. But it was very minor.
Yeah its kind of like astringency without the chalkyness. Kicks in a bit 20 seconds after your first bite and builds up as you eat more. Makes me nauseous after I eat more than one.
I’m seeing this with only slightly ripe fruit so it must be a wild variety.
I’m going to take the word of people here and get a named variety.
2 Likes
Shenandoah and it’s children from Red Fern Farm www.redfernfarm.com are probably good bets for a mild fruit.
Bitterness seems to be strongest around the seeds and/or skin. It also can be amplified or come about when the fruits get more ripe and start to turn brown. Leaving them exposed to sunlight can cause the skin to darken faster and develop a toffee/burnt sugar aroma on the skin and flavor within the fruit on that side. That toffee/burnt sugar flavor can really amplify the bitterness if the pawpaw has bitter components or aftertaste to it. I’ve tasted a lot of wild fruit where letting them ripen too long (or even just exposing the pulp to oxygen for several minutes) causes that burnt taste and associative bitterness, so I’ve been wary of my taste bud associating that taste with bitterness. That doesn’t seem to be the case as much with better named varieties though, as I’ve been eating some Shenandoahs and Wabashs that sun ripened til they got brown on one side and developed some toffee flavor but I’m not sure I would consider them bitter.
Anyway, these are just my observations. These aren’t facts. I could possibly change my mind later. I’m willing to admit that I could be wrong or that I’m not tasting things as well as I could, but I’m trying. Taste is subjective and can be very tricky to figure out and objectify when it comes to complicated fruits like pawpaws. I’m always trying to challenge my palate and experiment with how fruits can taste. Thank you to everyone else here giving your own thoughts, opinions, and experiences on this thread!
1 Like
Would it be fair to say feijoas have a resinous taste?
I have two fairly mature fejoias that have not produced fruit, so I’m hoping to be able to answer that question with my opinion next year.
Yes, kind of resinous. I’ve heard the flavor described as myrtaceous – tropical guavas also have this flavor. I really like it.
1 Like
I really like it, too, at least in feijoas, which is the only fruit I can think of that I’m familiar with that has a flavor I’d describe that way.
Last year I had a coon and also no pawpaws… I didn’t make the connection until I saw your post though, I had assumed it was deer last year. Finally trapped the coon late in the season. This year I recently got a heavier creature based on limb breakage and I am pretty sure it is a groundhog as nothing is eating the pawpaws on the ground.
1 Like
Strongly disagree. To me, a few of the Peterson ones have an aftertaste. It’s not as pronounced. Some more subtle than others, but it lingers on the back of your palate. I’m often considered a supertaster, so I have no idea how this will translate to your experience. Shenandoah and Allegheny are probably the only two Peterson pawpaws that I can eat more than one of in a single sitting.
Try a Wilson’s pawpaw. It’s an old named cultivar. KSU’s Dr. Kirk Pomper once joked that after you try Wilsons, “you may wish for death.”
I should also point out that phenolic wild taste is different from a pawpaw which may have a “strong” flavor. You can have one without the other.
I posted about my experience first time tasting a lot of pawpaws last year.
5 Likes
Given their morphology and behavior, I would suspect raccoons as the tree climbers before groundhogs. Raccoons are very well known as climbers and can grow to over 25 kilos (55 lbs). Groundhogs rarely get above 6 kg (13 lbs) and are designed for digging, not climbing. All that said, individual animals can develop their own set of behaviors. Squirrels also like pawpaws and depending on the openness of habitat and proximity to other trees, some squirrels don’t like to be on the ground (unless they are planting black walnuts next to your vegetable garden).
1 Like
My groundhogs love tree climbing. I had a GH 8 ft up a wild apple tree the other day. Also my squirrels like pawpaws as much as they like everything else - a single bite in each fruit. They don’t bother beyond the first bite. >_<
Honestly, I don’t think it has anything to do with preference. It’s just that that like to sample and or have crappy memories of their own taste preferences. Of course, it’s perfectly possible they do this out of pure spite.
1 Like
I go by what I catch in the traps. Last year it was raccoons and I expect that was the problem. This year I caught some raccoons before any fruit ripened but none since then, and saw a groundhog several times in the area where I lost all the fruit and had the limb breakages. These are really just educated guesses, I am planning on getting some wildlife cameras for next season so I can be more certain what kind of trapping I need to do.
What do you do with them?
You can ditch them at most state parks. My ground hogs don’t really climb the tree. They just kind of shake the tree to get fruit to drop.
I have both gray and fox squirrels here. The grays get into the bird feeders, stuff their cheeks full, flinging seed as they do, run off to stash the seed, come back for more, repeat until the feeder is empty.
The fox squirrels climb up, take one sunflower seed or peanut, settle down, eat it carefully, select another, and soon move on to another food source.
Gray squirrels wind up in the stew pot. Fox squirrels don’t.
Yes, but I was hoping @scottfsmith might tell us he has a collection of squirrel, raccoon, and groundhog skulls adorning his property each set on atop a pike as a warning to the local wildlife population.
2 Likes
Haha! I drive the bigger animals to the woods north of me. Squirrels get swimming lessons, they flunk every time.
3 Likes
My raccoons get swimming lessons which they flunk.
1 Like
mine dont taste resinous